Serco Leisure

What we can do for you
Founded in 1988, Serco Leisure Operating Limited is one of the UK’s leading national operators of leisure centres, destination venues and elite sporting facilities.

In 2021, we were named ukactive’s Outstanding Organisation of the Year.

Working collaboratively with independent charitable trusts, including our national partner More Leisure Community Trust, we operate over 40 facilities on behalf of Local Authority clients and Sport England.

Serco Leisure is part of Serco’s UK Citizen Services business, which generates revenues in excess of £350m pa and employs more than 6,000 staff.

Key products and services
We manage Local Authority gyms and pools on behalf of councils in England, Northern Ireland and on the Channel Island of Jersey, but our breadth of experience covers many other areas, including the operation of prestige National Sports Centres such as Bisham Abbey and Lilleshall, venues where elite and community sport come together.

Since 2018, in partnership with the More Leisure Community Trust and on behalf of the national charity for wheelchair sport WheelPower, we have been the proud operator of Stoke Mandeville Stadium, the birthplace of the Paralympic movement.

Our national centres are not just sporting venues. At Lilleshall, we offer a boutique hotel experience in our Main House, and fine dining in Chapters Restaurant, while the National Water Sports Centre in Nottingham offers an award-winning campsite and range of all-family activity options including paddleboarding, kayaking, Archery Combat and the Lagoon Wipeout inflatable.

These centres are also home to various major sporting NGBs, including British Gymnastics and England Hockey.

We’re the company responsible for the original design and build for Transport for London’s successful cycle hire scheme and have provided, maintained and distributed the bikes, since the scheme’s launch. In 2022, we added e-bikes to this popular scheme.

In 2021 we launched a cycle hire scheme in the West Midlands, which has 1,500 bikes, comprising 1,350 pedal and 150 e-bikes, available for hire across the region. So far, the scheme has recorded half a million journeys with riders travelling over 1.2 million km collectively.
Plans for the next 12 months
2022 was a record-breaking 12 months for Serco Leisure, as we celebrated a set of sales figures at year-end that even our most optimistic forecasts hadn’t predicted.

2023 will see us consolidating those gains, while looking to improve our overall customer offering via the introduction of a new Single-Customer-View CRM system. When this launches later in the year, it will allow us to provide customers with a journey that goes far beyond their leisure centre visit and will instead marry up their in-centre experience with engaging digital touch-points and supportive human interventions.

Testimonial
"We have enjoyed a fantastic partnership with Serco Leisure since the contract was awarded in 2015. They manage nine facilities on our behalf and together we have opened four new facilities: Stechford, Northfield, Erdington and Ladywood, two of which won prestigious ukactive awards, highlighting the quality of these new builds.

"The knowledge, expertise and experience Serco bring is first class. In the post-COVID era, we’re confident they are the operator who will provide the level of service, variety of activity and the inclusive welcome the people of Birmingham deserve."
– Dave Wagg, Head of Sport & Development, Birmingham City Council